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ELF, ICC, and the N/NEST – the Challenges for English- Language Education in the 21St Century1

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ELF, ICC, and the N/NEST – the Challenges for English- Language Education in the 21St Century1 33 ELF, ICC, and the N/NEST – the Challenges for English- Language Education in the 21st Century1 Michał B. PARADOWSKI University of Warsaw Within the rapidly globalizing world the role of English, its status, and the language itself are undergoing an unprecedented, far-reaching evolution, with immediate consequences for the EFL classroom. The paper focuses on the following aspects of current validity: - the changes in learners’ objectives in a world where over ¾ of English-medium communication does not involve NSs of this lingua franca, and their consequences for language syllabi and assessment (concerning not only the toning down of prescriptive norms on the one hand, but also the heightened significance of e.g. pragmatic competence in cross-cultural communication on the other); - the changes in global EIL/ELF as such, brought about by users of the language from what Kachru once called the expanding circle, as well as by immigrants, which, of course transforms the vernacular used by the NSs themselves; - the diverse and numerous factors which have brought about these changes and the ‘English rush’: social, economic, educational, political, etc.; - reasons why, especially in view of the above, the NS should not be blindly taken to be a better teacher of the language any more. All these factors need to be recognized by language teachers and program administrators in setting up a successful 21st-c. EFL classroom. Tides of Change in the English Language English became what it did from its overwhelming receptivity to input from the outside, especially in the Age of Empire and the Age of Industry. Now in the Digital Age, it's doing it again – following the natural ebb and flow of the tides of change. For those who would pull up the moat, who would turn English into a museum, who would laminate the dictionaries so that nothing new can be added or amended, a la the French Academy, I say be careful what you wish for. —Ruth Wajnryb, Australian linguist (2005, Dec 3) The Sydney Morning Herald Before embarking on any serious discussion of ELT, one cannot fail to take into consideration the multidirectional pressures exerted on English during the last decades. While English-speaking countries are witnessing an emergent population that does not speak the language, other countries are keeping their heads down to make sure that their citizens do. English today is one of the most hybrid and rapidly metamorphosing languages in the world, and no longer under the sole jurisdiction of its native speakers. The spontaneous and inexorable ensure process of language evolution which has always affected English as a Native Language (ENL), is currently molding English as a Lingua 1 An extended portion of the first section of this paper originally appeared in the Apr. 2008 issue of the Novitas: Research on Youth and Language journal, 2/1: 92–119, as ‘Winds of change in the English language – Air of peril for native speakers?’ 34 Franca (ELF)—or English as an International Language (EIL)—and the resultant changes cannot be written off as ‘errors’ (Jenkins 2004). The rapidly changing sociolinguistic profile and glossography of English (i.e. “the historical-structural and functional aspects of the global spread, status, role and entrenchment of [the] language”; Nayar 1994:1) are both qualitatively and quantitatively unprecedented. Responsible have been primarily the processes of globalisation and internalisation, influencing speakers from numerous social, economic, political and—the most important in our case—linguistic backgrounds. Globalisation has fostered the ubiquity and supremacy of English in such key international arenas as mass media, education, international relations, travel, safety, and communication (Crystal 2003). Unprecedented changes in economics, in commerce, in the demographic shape of the world with the erosion of state borders and global migration higher than ever before, in society, in the nature and control of news media, in the growing consumption of English-language entertainment, in international education markets, and in new communications technologies (ICT)—especially the Internet, in which lack of familiarity with English is frequently equal to illiteracy—have all accelerated the spread of the language and influenced its current shape (Crystal 2002; while being themselves feedback-wise affirmed and propelled by the growing availability of this global language). Learners ever Younger English learners worldwide are massively increasing in number while decreasing in age, with the number (1.9 billion on one recent estimate1) anticipated to reach 2 billion in less than a decade (Graddol 2006:14; 99-101), to peak at 3 billion—about half the present-day world’s population—by around 2040 (op. cit.:107). Parents eager for their children to achieve are themselves pushing industry changes, forking over tuition for English- language schools from Caracas to Karachi, while education ministries from Tunisia to Turkey are decreeing the teaching of the language to at least a basic level, acknowledging it—alongside computers and mass migration—as the turbine engine of globalisation (Power 2005). China made English compulsory in primary schools from Grade 3 in 2001, while metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai already had it at Grade 1. In 2004 a new English learning curriculum was launched in the PRC, increasing students’ vocabularies from 3,500 to 5,000 words, paying more attention to developing communicative skills, endorsing CALL at college level, and making elementary-level English a mandatory requirement on all degree courses, permitting the inclusion of an oral English component in university entrance examinations (Gill 2004). A growing number of parents are even enrolling their preschoolers in the new crop of local language courses, with some pregnant women speaking English to their foetuses (Power 2005). With an estimated 176.7 million pupils in the state education sector in 2005 (nearly twice as many as there are Britons), more people are learning English in the Middle Kingdom than in any other country, annually letting loose over 20 million new users of the language (ibid.), the primary aim being to help future employees interact more effectively in the business 2 market. 1 http://www.xefl.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=18 2 Taxi drivers in Taiwan, frequently depicted in travel guides as speaking no foreign languages, are working hard to break the stereotype. You no longer need to fret as long as the chauffer belongs to the English Taxi Drivers 35 and Older At the other end of the spectrum, courses for old-age pensioners are also oversubscribed. Grandmas and grandpas want to communicate with their grandchildren who live abroad and may not speak a word of their parents’ mother tongue (on the spot or via Skype or webchat), to travel, surf the Internet, and understand foreign television channels. Language schools have responded to the demand launching special offers targeted at this clientele (e.g. morning meetings in a narrow circle over tea, coffee and biscuits), hitting a niche in the market that has now become a distinct trend in education. The elderly today—who go into retirement in full possession of their mental faculties—take up languages not just to kill the time and train grey matter, but also because they find them handy in everyday use, and out of the desire to get to know the world and new people, while an increasing number can afford language classes. They learn systematically, with diligence and lots of enthusiasm. The declining birth rate and changes in the image of the grandparents presented in the media as well-clad, full of vigour and having plenty of spare time, result in their not having or being willing to take care of grandchildren, while choosing to develop their own skills. The ‘Ownership’ of English The English language is not a square with definite sides containing its area; it is a circle ... nowhere bounded by any line called a circumference. It is a spot of colour on a damp surface, which shades away imperceptibly into the surrounding colourlessness. —Sir James A. H. Murray, British lexicographer (1884) Oxford English Dictionary At such a rate, when according to David Crystal non-native English speakers now outnumber native ones 3:1, the time-honoured curators of English no longer remain in control of how their—actually, now only partly their—language is developing (Graddol 2006:12), and no longer can a solitary country or culture—or the whole Anglosphere even—assert absolute sovereignty over the language. These new users of the language are not just submissively soaking it up—they are actively sculpting it, breeding a variety of regional Englishes3 (dialects), as well as offshoots of colonization – pidgins and English- lexified creoles. These languages, which have evolved as amalgams of different codes, are now unintelligible to many Anglophone monolinguals. At the same time, with the growing economies of developing countries (especially such ‘Asian tigers’ as the PRC or India), many former economic U.S. immigrants may Association, having finished an ESP training program and passed a speaking test, whereupon s/he receives a certificate and a sticker reading “Yes, I speak English,” to be prominently displayed on the cab for easy identification. Since the launch of the program in 2001, more than 1,000 drivers have been awarded the certificate. ETA general director asserted that the drivers often speak English with one another as daily practice, and some even read English newspapers on a daily basis (‘Taipei cab drivers brushing up their linguistic skills.’ Taipei Times, Jun 13 2006). 3 Richards (1972) proposed that these varieties should properly be regarded as interlanguages which have developed as a consequence of the particular social contexts of their learning and use. However, once they have become established in their communities of speakers and gained the status of the L1 for subsequent generations, they can now be seen as independent varieties in sui generis terms.
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